Nokia is facing a lawsuit over contested patents held by German firm IP-Com, purchased last year from Bosch and their use offered to the Finnish firm for a staggering €12bn ($17.77bn).  Claiming the patents are "invalid" and contesting their alleged infringement, Nokia are promising to "vigorously defend" the case through the courts.  IP-Com is almost half-owned by private equity company Fortress ... continued »

In a stunning display of marketing-speak, Motorola have announced that they are "exploring the structural and strategic realignment of its businesses to better equip its Mobile Devices business to recapture global market leadership and to enhance shareholder value"; in other words, they're thinking of selling bits off.  In a bid to reverse the decline of their cellphone branch, Motorola are ... continued »

Tessera Technologies, who supply companies like Intel, Samsung and Texas Instruments with advanced packaging, interconnect and consumer optics, have announced an agreement to buy digital image experts FotoNation for $29m in cash as well as a further $10m based on first-year performance.  FotoNation, who develop hardware and firmware solutions for red-eye correction, smile & blink detection and face tracking, already have their products ... continued »

Ericsson are the latest to release their financial performance figures for last year, and - as you might expect for a company with fingers in many different cellular pies - it's a mixture of highs and lows.  In terms of handsets, Sony Ericsson shipped 30.8m in Q4 2007, an 18-percent increase on Q4 2006, with SE crediting the new high-end Walkman ... continued »

With the latest Ofcom news, I find myself wishing that the UK mobile phone regulators could tackle petrol prices in their spare time; they've taken the UK networks to task over SMS message and data charges when users are roaming in Western Europe.  Last year EU regulations were pushed through that limited the carriers from charging more than £0.38/minute ($0.76) for ... continued »

I have two words for this guy, “seek help.” This 37-year-old guy is jobless, single and obviously very lonely. Which explains why he called directory assistance 10,000 times. He was reported whispering “darling” as he tried to strike a conversation and then pleaded with the female operators not to hang up. Now that’s got to rank ... continued »

The Garmin nuvifone is actually the closest iPhone-clone I’ve seen announced stateside. It runs Garmin’s proprietary OS, has the same 3.5-inch LCD display as the iPhone, HSDPA (wahoo!), quad-band, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS. Click over to read the rest of the press release. continued »

Faced with the prospect of Block D in the FCC auction not meeting its reserve price, US Rep. Ed Markey of the Telecommunications and Internet subcommittee is promising a quick turnaround getting the band, complete with a revisited reserve figure, back onto the market.  Nonetheless, Markey is keen to stress that the current auction - for what he describes as ... continued »

Only yesterday did I call the last seven days "a week of major profits", and now here's Verizon Wireless to bask in some investor goodwill as they announce their own impressive Q4 2007 performance. Adding two-million net customers with "industry leading customer loyalty" (or in other words a churn rate of 1.2-percent) and data revenues up a massive ... continued »

The announcement of Skyfire’s new web browser will most definitely raise the bar by bringing PC browsing experience to Windows Mobile devices. Better user experience includes faster page load time and most important of all the support for Flash and Ajax. Users can now enjoy Youtube, Facebook, Myspaces and Last.fm - like never before. Did I mention ... continued »